Ice Pier Limits Discovered
Ice pier operations at the world’s most southern port have not been without mishap. The principal threat is onshore winds with accompanying high seas and ocean swells, which can severely damage the ice pier. For example in 1993, high winds and heavy swells caused major cracks in the wharf. Rough seas produced movements of several feet between individual sections of the pier, according to a National Science Foundation (NSF) report. The resulting damage prevented vehicles from traveling onto the pier for repairs.
Conditions worsened the following week when additional storms pushed ice, slush, and sea water onto the pier, flooding about one-half of the dock. The inundation on the pier's seaward side reached three to six-feet high and froze nearly immediately, according to the NSF report. The strategy to repair the storm damage included adding additional restraining cables followed by routine flooding to build up the ice thickness.
Notable incidents with damaged ice piers at McMurdo Station include an event 10 years earlier. The ice pier had been in use four seasons in 1983 when the freighter USNS Southern Cross docked at Winter Quarters Bay. Operation Deep Freeze officials pressed the pier into extended service in order for the freighter to make an unprecedented two supply runs in one season from Port Lyttelton, New Zealand, to McMurdo. However, efforts to extend the ice pier’s lifespan resulted in a cargo truck breaking through the ice. The driver of the truck standing atop the container leapt to safety, receiving minor injuries.
The most recent incident in 2010 occurred when an 10 year storm blew in causing white cap waves to wash the pier out to sea. It was assumed to be lost with the Jamesway hut, telephone pole, bollards, and other equipment still on it. Found during the austral summer in 2011, the equipment was ferried by helicopter back to McMurdo. A tracking beacon was left on the Ice Pier as it drifts out to sea.
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